Polgara's chin lifted. "Look quickly then, Salmissra. I have little patience for the involuted amusements of a snake."

"The centuries have made you waspish, Polgara. Let us be civil to one another. Would you like to have me tell you what I know of Zandramas? She is no longer what she once was."

"She!" Garion exclaimed.

"You did not even know that?" the serpent hissed maliciously. "Your sorcery is a sham, then, Polgara. Could you not sense your enemy is a woman? And did you perhaps not even realize that you have already met her?"

"What are you talking about, Salmissra?"

"Poor, dear Polgara. The long, long centuries have filled your wits with cobwebs. Did you really think that you and Belgarath are the only ones in the world who can change their shapes? The dragon who visited you in the mountains above Arendia appears quite different when she resumes her natural form."

The door to the throne room opened and Issus came back in, holding a parchment sheet with a red wax seal on the bottom of it.

"Bring it to me," Salmissra commanded.

Issus looked at her, his single eye narrowing as he gauged the distance between the serpent's throne and his own unprotected skin. Then he went over to the prostrate eunuch who had presented Polgara's document to the queen. Without changing expression, he kicked the man solidly in the ribs. "Here," he said, thrusting out the parchment. "Take this to her Majesty."

"Are you afraid of me, Issus?" Salmissra asked, sounding faintly amused.

"I am unworthy to approach you too closely, my Queen."

Salmissra bent her head to examine the parchment the trembling eunuch held out for her to read. "There appears to be some discrepancy," she hissed. "This document is the same as the one you showed me, Polgara, but it is not the document to which I ordered my seal affixed. How is this possible?"

"May I speak, my Queen?" the eunuch who held the parchment asked in a quavering voice.

"Of course, Adiss," she replied almost pleasantly, "so long as you realize that if your words displease me, the kiss I will give you in payment will bring you death." Her forked tongue flickered out toward him.

The eunuch's face went a ghastly gray color, and his trembling became so violent that he very nearly collapsed.

"Speak, Adiss," she whispered. "It is my command that you disclose your mind to me. We will determine then whether you live or die. Speak. Now."

"My Queen," he quavered, "the Chief Eunuch is the only person in the palace permitted to touch your Majesty's royal seal. If the document in question is false, must we not look to him for an explanation?"

The serpent considered that, her head swaying rhythmically back and forth and her forked tongue flickering. At last she stopped her reptilian dance and leaned slowly forward until her tongue brushed the cringing eunuch's cheek. "Live, Adiss," she murmured. "Your words have not displeased me, and so my kiss grants the gift of life." Then she reared her mottled form again and regarded Sariss with her dead eyes. "Do you have an explanation, Sariss? As our most excellent servant Adiss has pointed out, you are my Chief Eunuch. You affixed my seal. How did this discrepancy come to pass?"

"My Queen—" His mouth gaped open, and his dead-white face froze in an expression of stark terror.

The still-shaken Adiss half rose, his eyes filled with a sudden wild hope. He held up the parchment in his hand and turned to his crimson-robed companions kneeling to one side of the dais. "Behold," he cried in a triumphant voice. "Behold the proof of the Chief Eunuch's misconduct!"

The other eunuchs looked first at Adiss and then at the groveling and terrified Chief Eunuch. Their eyes also furtively tried to read the enigmatic expression on Salmissra's face. "Ah," they said in unison at last.

"I'm still waiting, Sariss," the Serpent Queen whispered.

Sariss, however, quite suddenly scrambled to his feet and bolted toward the throne room door, squealing in mindless, animal panic. As fast as his sudden flight was, though, Issus was even faster. The shabby, one-eyed assassin bounded after the fleeing fat man, his horrid dagger leaping into his hand. With the other he caught the back of the Chief Eunuch's crimson robe and jerked him up short. He raised his knife and looked inquiringly at Salmissra.

"Not yet, Issus," she decided. "Bring him to me."

Issus grunted and dragged his struggling captive toward the throne. Sariss, squealing and gibbering in terror, scrambled his feet ineffectually on the polished floor.

"I will have an answer from you, Sariss," Salmissra whispered.

"Talk," Issus said in a flat voice, setting his dagger point against the eunuch's lower eyelid. He pushed slightly, and a sudden trickle of bright-red blood ran down the fat man's cheek.

Sariss squealed and began to blubber. "Forgive me, your Majesty," he begged. "The Mallorean Naradas compelled it of me."

"How did you do it, Sariss?" the serpent demanded implacably.

"I put your seal at the very bottom of the page, Divine Salmissra," he blurted. "Then when I was alone, I added the other orders."

"And were there other orders as well?" Aunt Pol asked him. "Will we encounter hindrances and traps on the trail of Zandramas?"

"No. Nothing. I gave no orders other than that Zandramas be escorted to the Murgo border and provided the maps she required. I pray you, your Majesty. Forgive me."

"That is quite impossible, Sariss," she hissed. "It had been my intention to hold myself aloof in the dispute between Polgara and Zandramas, but now I am involved because you have abused my trust in you."

"Shall I kill him?" Issus asked calmly.

"No, Issus," she replied. "Sariss and I will share a kiss, as is the custom in this place." She looked oddly at him. "You are an interesting man, assassin," she said. "Would you like to enter my service? I am certain that a position can be found for one of your talents."

Adiss the eunuch gasped, his face suddenly going pale. "But your Majesty," he protested, leaping to his feet, "your servants have always been eunuchs, and this man is—" He faltered, suddenly realizing the temerity of his rash outburst.

Salmissra's dead eyes locked on his, and he sank white-faced to the floor again. "You disappoint me, Adiss," she said in that dusty whisper. She turned back to the one-eyed assassin. "Well, Issus?" she said. "A man of your talents could rise to great eminence, and the procedure, I'm told, is a minor one. You would soon recover and enter the service of your queen."